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Apart from their striking black and white fur, the black spots around their eyes gives them an appealing sleepy look that seems to match their adorably clumsy behavior. Furthermore considering that they are often seen lounging about, peacefully eating plants instead of hunting, it makes them seem so innocent. In addition, they are one of the few animals who have a protruding bone in each paw that acts as an opposable thumb to grasp objects, giving their eating habits an appealingly human-like appearance. Keep in mind that eating bamboo requires a large amount of chewing. That round adorable face houses some powerful jaw muscles.

Gantz has an alien-hunting baby panda named Hoi Hoi. Not only does he function as the Team Pet after losing the Butter Dog, the thing proves that, although cute, it can still kick serious ass, gaining 40 points before disappearing somewhere.

In Excel Saga, Excel and Hyatt must escort the T10000, a robotic bomb designed to go off in downtown F-City. Hyatt suggests the robot is too obvious, so they end up disguising it as a panda. It works the wrong way, since it attracts more people.

Pandaikon from Nerima Daikon Brothers is not only the mascot of the team and occasional mastermind behind the day being saved, but he is also the object of desire of no less than two characters of a recurring cast of five.

Panda Khan, which was about a bunch of anthro Chinese pandas. The bad guy was the Lord of Death, who for some reason was the only human-looking character. Panda Kahn would later be included in the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles toyline from the 80's.

Usagi Yojimbo has Lord Noriyuki, a child-lord who is protected by Usagi's friend and comrade Tomoe Ame.

The Italian strips A Panda Piace... (Panda Likes...). The answer is a lot of silly things.

Wolverine was shocked to discover that his spirit guide animal is a talking panda. He naturally assumed it would be a wolverine. The panda retorts that wolverines are too busy being angry to be spirit animals. Logan insults the panda by calling it cuddly. Then the panda and Logan fight. The panda wins.

Tropic Thunder qualifies, in that Tugg Speedman loves pandas and does conservation work for them. Since the film runs on Refuge in Audacity, he ends up accidentally killing one and later wears its head as a camouflage hat. The example is more accurately a subversion, since Tugg's reason for killing the panda is that it is ferociously attacking him and he is afraid of it. In fact, it's not even revealed that this fierce animal is a panda until after it's been killed.

Tugg Speedman: I killed one, Rick... the thing I love most in the world. Rick Peck: A hooker. Oh Jesus, you killed a hooker! Tugg: No, a panda! Rick: Amanda? That's probably not even her real name.

The 2018 comedy film Show Dogs features a police dog going undercover to stop an animal smuggling scheme, with one of the animals being Ling-Li, a baby panda.

Vince McCain from Fierce Creatures imported a (robot) panda to the zoo. It is later seen with an "out of order" sign. But again, we're reminded that real life pandas can be quite aggressive. When Vince walked into the Panda pen for the first time, the staff members were all terrified because they thought the panda was real and about to attack.

Literature

The title of Lynne Truss' book, Eats, Shoots and Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation, is a reference to a joke on poor punctuation: A panda walks into a cafe and orders a sandwich. After the panda has eaten his meal, he takes out a gun and shoots several holes in the ceiling. As the panda begins to leave, the waiter cries out, "What was that for?" in regard to the shootings. The panda tosses a wildlife guide to the waiter. The waiter reads the guide, and it says, "Panda. Black-and-white mammal native to China. Eats, shoots and leaves."

The Colbert Report has brought up pandas on a number of occasions. Stephen has clarified that the panda is a bear (although the red panda isn't) and, as such, holds full Godless Killing Machine status. Although it was interesting to watch him view a video on baby pandas and keep having to remind himself that the awesome cuteness was just a trick.

Jimmy Fallon's tenure on The Tonight Show brings us Hashtag the Panda, a performer in a full-body panda suit who dances about — to the point of Overly Long Gag — in the wake of particularly corny monologue jokes. Introduced as a temporary Running Gag in response to a news story about a Chinese zoo that put a television in a panda's pen to help with its depression, the faux panda quickly became an audience favorite; its name was the winner in a fan suggestion contest on Twitter. Hashtag has since only been brought out sporadically, such as during the week the show spent at Universal Orlando in June 2014 — and Ben Stiller turned out to be in the suit, claiming to have been all along in an effort to promote a new project, to Fallon's perplexity.

In the First Doctor story, "The Chase", future companion Steven Taylor has been locked up in an alien prison for years with his stuffed panda, Hi-Fi, his only company.

A season 2 episode of Chicago Med starts with the doctors worrying if a potential patient could cause an international incident if something goes wrong, and then when they take the case, there's a Chinese ambassador and a veterinarian present. It turns out that the panda on loan to the Chicago Zoo needs a cardiothorassic surgeon.

Music

The song "The pandas must die" by Corky and the Juice Pigs is built on the shock value of contradicting this trope.

Tao, a former member of K-PopBoy BandEXO, is known as 'panda' to the fans due to his under eye circles.

In 2015, Desiigner released a song called "Panda" on SoundCloud, which eventually found its way into the mainstream, leading it to chart at #1 on the Billboard Hot 100. The "Panda" in the song actually refers to a white BMW X-6 with tinted windows, which Desiigner thought "looks like a panda".

In the 1980s there was Pandita, a luchador who wrestled in panda suit. He was unmasked in 2008 by Súper Pinocho but his two sons, El Hijo del Pandita and Pandita Jr continued his legacy, as well as FMW wrestler Flying Kid Ichihara, who had the alternate gimmick of Rei Pandita.

Tekken has a female panda character, named Panda. She's highly intelligent for a Panda, learned a bear-style martial arts and serves as the bodyguard of the resident Anime Chinese Girl, Xiaoyu (who's no slouch by herself, by the way). And has a hilarious relationship with a male grizzly bear, Kuma (he loves her, but she ignores him, then hilarity usually ensues.)

The Pandaren in Warcraft III. Rumor had it, for quite some time, that they didn't appear in WoW due to sensibilities and marketing the game in China, in that China's national animal was originally depicted in the style of a Samurai, which is Japanese. They were made a playable race in the fourth Expansion Pack: Mists of Pandaria. Nevertheless, the fanbase is very broken about it.

And in the fangame Defense of the Ancients: All-Stars, there are two heroes based on the above Pandaren race: Mangix (Brewmaster) and Raijin Thunderkegg (Storm Spirit). They got less-Panda models when Dota 2 was released. Also originally, before making the jump to Dota 2, Kaolin (Earth Spirit) and Xin (Ember Spirit) used to have panda models too.

Two Pandarens from Warcraft get included Heroes of the Storm, one of them being veteran Chen Stormstout, and another one just push this trope further... how to do even more pandaing? Make the panda a young one and a girl. That's Li Li. (and surprisingly, Li Li was included first before Chen)

Pandas are notably absent in Guild Wars (in particular, the Far EastFactions campaign) allegedly due to Chinese laws. There are a couple pandas in the game, but they have Gameplay Ally Immortality; pandas also exist as minipets.

That's no longer the case. As of the Beyond: Winds of Change storyline, it is now possible to acquire a panda as Ranger pet, and it can be temporarily killed in battle.

Zigzagged in the Sly Cooper series. In his first appearance, The Panda King was very much an aversion, thanks to his use of his skills as a fireworks artist to extort from the villages around his compound, as well as being a member of the gang that murdered Sly's dad and stole the Thievius Raccoonus and was an enemy to the Cooper Gang. In the third installment however, he undergoes a HeelFace Turn and is shown to be be still a bit grumpy, but has renounced violence and is generally good-natured and mellow, not to mention a VERY loving father...which leads to him becoming the Cooper Gang's Demolitions Expert, after Sly helps rescue his daugther.

Spinda are shaped like giant pandas, though their coloration is more akin to that of the raccoon-like red panda.

Pokémon X and Y finally give us a proper panda in Pancham and its evolution Pangoro. Subverted in that they're hardly cute (Pangoro definitely, Pancham by comparison to regular examples) and are Fighting-types, with Pangoro also being Dark-type and looking particularly intimidating. However, they happen to have little tolerance for those who bully the weak.

Etrian Odyssey II: Heroes of Lagaard has a blue-eyed panda as one of the four options for the Beast class. (The other choices being a brown bear, a wolf, and a sabertoothed white tiger... which are all functionally the same.)

Wii Fit features a game where you have to shift your body weight to head footballs. You to avoid flying boots- and panda costume heads.

In Digimon World DS, Pandamon (Monzaemon painted to look like a panda) is the only digimon in the game that you encounter at the end of a level that you WILL NOT FIGHT. EVER. Rather, he asks you some questions about Digimon that are insultingly easy to see if you're worthy of helping him with the question that perplexes him. Apparently, he couldn't get a multiple choice question, even though there are only two possible answers.

The Monster Rancher series has Mewnda, who is a hybrid of a Mew and a Pancho monster. It looks like a stuffed panda toy. Initially this seems kind of weird—Mew is a cat, and Pancho is a cute bug living in a giant pumpkin—but makes sense as a pun. Panda, Pancho.

Pankichi, the mascot character in Getter Love!! "Panda Love Unit" is the name of the group of girls involved in the game (not including Reika, of course). The game is set in a town called Panda Town (complete with Panda Burger, Panda Park, Panda Game Corner, etc.), Ayumi keeps a Pankichi doll at home, Reika gives you a Pankichi doll as a gift, and panda angels or devils appear when certain item cards are used or after a girl accepts or rejects an "I love you". Oh, and there's also a Chinese exchange student as one of the girls, and a Chinese restaurant on the map. China, native country of pandas, not likely a coincidence.

Overlord II has pandas, who are definitely not nice. Harm the bamboo they eat and you have several tons of angry panda rushing to rip you to pieces. Worst part? If you want to advance you must break down bamboo blocking your way.

Also in We ♥ Katamari, there is a fan who requests many expensive items to be rolled up, so that they can buy strawberries and feed them to pandas, so that they'll become red pandas.

Teemo, a character from League of Legends, got a panda costume with a bamboo blowpipe. Annie also gets a costume where she turns her pet bear Tibbers into a panda, while wearing a panda-ish costume herself. All that the game lacks is a costume that turns champion Volibear into Volipanda.

The Kooma Panda in Kingdom Hearts 3D: Dream Drop Distance. They're the game's obligatory Smash Mook, and perhaps one of the most troublesome variants of it in the entire series, due to being surprisingly quick on its feet for its size and able to strike from quite a distance away. On the plus side, they can be your allies, too.

In Spyro: Year of the Dragon, pandas are NPC's of some areas; they need Spyro's help or can help him in some way. There's even a giant balloon in the shape of a panda. (Year of the Dragon is definitely the most Asian-esque game in the series, although Spyro and kin are still Western dragons.)

One of the episodes of Paul Rudish's Mickey Mouse (2013) series has Mickey trying to get a picture of a baby panda in a Chinese zoo. The panda messes with him and eventually steals his camera, while Mickey gets black eyes and is mistaken for a baby panda himself while the real one takes a photo as the episode ends. This episode is appropriately titled "Panda-monium".

In Mickey and the Roadster Racers, Lulu wants to take a photo with Penny the Panda, (not to be confused with Penny Ling from Littlest Pet Shop (2012)), and after meeting some playful gorillas, elephants, a giraffe, and the animals helping to change a flat tire, Lulu discovers that Penny is a mother of two adorable panda cubs, and everyone gets the chance to have their picture taken with the pandas.

South Park had Sexual Harassment Panda, but he was just a guy in a suit.

Highlighted in the Wild Kratts Season 3 episodes "Panda Power Up", "Red Panda Rescue" (with the red and giant pandas), mentioned in "The Colors of China" and the special "A Creature Christmas" holiday episode.

Subverted when the DNA sample that Flint took is full of alien microbes, and Sam uses a bamboo shoot as a blowgun to launch-feed a sardine into the panda's mouth, revealing it to be an alien with squidlike alien tentacles, confirming Sam's suspicions, but also angering the townspeople when the mother ship recalls the panda alien, after the aliens blame them for rejecting the adorable panda dance of eternal life, and Swallow Falls misses out on the opportunity to become an everlasting paradise.

One of the Care Bears (1980s) episodes centered around two lost Care Bears, a pair of panda twins (Perfect and Polite Panda) living in a small, utopic tropical paradise situated in the middle of nowhere.

The Hair Bear Bunch encounters a baby panda in "Panda Pandemonium." To Square Bear, the panda (named Percy) is a kindred spirit. To Hair, Percy is a third shoe. But he helps the bears escape to take in a carnival where they lose him to a contest booth barker.

In an early episode of Space Ghost Coast to Coast, Space Ghost offers to let Donny Osmond promote something, to which Donny snaps that whenever people try to promote things on this show, they interrupt and cut to something unrelated. Or, he tries to, but halfway through they cut to zoo footage of a panda.

Narrator: Behold the Wooly Panda. It is soft and round. The nearby sound of a throttling chainsaw startles it. "Eek Eek", says the panda.

The two pandas who befriend Garfield, Odie, and Nermal in the The Garfield Show episode "Big Trouble in Little China". Ironically, they both speak in Australian accents and they find it ridiculous for pandas to do kung fu.

Raven: If we pander shamelessly, it could have disastrous consequences, Robin.

Beast Boy (turns into a panda): "Pander"? What do "pander bears" have to do with anything, mama? We got to get more fans!

Real Life

As suggested up top, this is most certainly notTruth in Television. Pandas are very ornery, even to each other. This is exactly why it's been particularly difficult to engage in captive breeding of pandas at zoos. That being said, things are looking up for the Giant Panda, which was upgraded from "endangered" to "vulnerable" by the IUCN in 2016.

Given this trope, and the Giant Panda's extremely low birth rate (especially in captivity), the births of cubs in zoos are always big news. Tragically though, such joyous news often ends up being Too Soon and is followed shortly thereafter by the very heartbreaking news of a cub's death, as panda cubs unfortunately have quite a high mortality rate (especially if it's twins; whichever cub is smaller will be rejected by the mother and often does not survive, even with intensive human care).

This tendency not to breed quickly is actually an evolutionary adaptation: The Giant Panda's natural habitat are mountainous regions where few things grow. The one thing there is an abundance of is bamboo. Unfortunately, due to large amounts of bamboo needed to sustain a single panda, this means that the natural environment can only support a small population. This isn't helped by habitat loss.

In 1936, Su-Lin, a giant panda cub was brought to the U.S. He was male, and named after Su-Lin Young, the sister-in-law of Quentin Young, Ruth Harkness's expedition partner. He was exhibited at the Brookfield Zoo near Chicago, which created a consumer desire for panda-related products. They tried to introduce him to Mei-Mei in the hopes that she would be his companion, but they fought with each other and had to be separated shortly afterwards. Sadly, Su-Lin died of pneumonia a few weeks after Mei-Mei's arrival.

In China, a giant panda named Pan Pan lived to the ripe old age of 31 (born in 1985 and recently died in December 28, 2016 at the age of 31. His name means "hope" or "expectation", and he was believed to have sired over 130 descendants. note The giant panda's average life span is 20 years in the wild and 30 years in captivity.

Wang Wang and Funi are a couple in a zoo in Australia, that have not successfully mated after even after being together for years. But during the 36 hour mating period each year, newscasters love to report on it because it combines Yet Another Baby Panda with Sex Sells. This newscast had a lot off double-entendres both intentional and unintentional with the newscasters loosing it, including a totally new definition for "Eats, shoots, and leaves."

Panda diplomacy. Essentially, one of China's primary methods of waving the olive branch to foreign nations is to give them pandas for their zoos. This goes all the way back to the 7th century, when Empress Wu Zetian sent two pandas to the Emperor of Japan. The most famous recent case is the panda diplomacy between China and the United States, whereby China provides pandas to the Smithsonian's National Zoo in Washington, D.C.. DC went positively gaga for the bears—not only are they a major attraction at the zoo (and one that even native Washingtonians will go to see), but they long appeared on the Washington Metro's paper farecards.

The British police used to have patrol cars called pandas, logically enough because they were blue and white. Yeah, blue. Don't ask us.

When police cars were introduced they were black and white or black and blue. The former inspired the nickname and it stuck, even in areas which used blue ones.

The Mexican Federal Road Police cars are appropriately black and white, and called pandas as well.

Apparently the Chinese government didn't think that the live news coverage of the eclipse of 22 July 2009 was complete without pandas. See it all here.

Little Tai Shan the panda, now apparently Butterstick, from the Washington D.C. zoo. The idea behind the name is that the little panda was described as "the size of a stick of butter" when he was born; instantly, DC area bloggers struck up a campaign to name him Butterstick. The zookeepers went with Tai Shan instead, but Butterstick remains a popular nickname, even used in official materials.

A bullion coin is a type of coin made from a precious metal like gold or silver, used as a form of making small investments in that metal, and which sell for a price close to the spot price of the metal (and a markup for the minter or dealer to make a profit). Most of these coins have fairly boring, traditional designs, and they repeat the same design every year. China's bullion coins, however, have a different panda design on them each year, which has led to them being valued as collection items and thus commanding a higher premium over the value of the metal, compared to plainer bullion coins.

In January 2010, Mozilla Firefox started a website with live webcams on a pair of red panda cubs, in support of protecting them.

There's a shop in London that sells basically nothing but panda toys and panda themed items.

Former Hannah Montana star Emily Osment is a fan of pandas, at least judging from her Twitter posts and pictures, and her followers have taken to calling her their "Panda Queen". People who attend her concerts wear and/or send her panda merchandise regularly.

During "Panda Awareness Week" in early July, the folks at the Chengdu conservatory posted some videos of pandas, including this one of four pandas playing on a slide.

Their overview of panda anatomy revealed what a panda looks like underneath its skin. Picture the Hulk, but with fangs and claws. Large ones. The caption that pandas in zoos frequently destroy their toys was practically self-explanatory.

One illustration managed to subvert this trope and play it straight at the same time. An adorable baby panda was under attack by a group of wild dogs, but its Mama Bear had stepped in to protect it. She is coming down, fangs bared, right on top of one of the would-be predators. The caption indicates that a panda's jaws are capable of crushing bone as easily as bamboo.

The PANDA group (People Against the NDAA) is a social activist group designed to fight the US law of indefinite detention (the ability of the president to arrest and detain or even kill any American civilian suspected of anti-government actions without due process) passed in the NDAA 2012. Certainly a noble fight and their name emulates a very cuddly animal. What's not to like?

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